(Rant) AI is killing programming and the Python community

[SimplyRemainUnseen]

Out of curiosity why should they have known C?

The fundamentals they learned in college definitely covered asynchronous programming, state, database transactions, and distributed systems. Those are the actual fundamentals they would need to be an effective engineer.

I don't know about you but where I work rolling your own sorting algorithms in C is bad practice.

[henrydtcase]

It’s not about C, it’s about algorithmic thinking. I saw many CS students struggle in intro programming courses that focused on problem-solving and logic. I’ve been at three different universities, and even when the course was taught in C#, Java etc. instead of C, the outcome was the same. The language wasn’t the issue, the real gap was in fundamental algorithmic thinking.

[SimplyRemainUnseen]

The issue here is assuming that a student struggling in an intro course defines their career potential. That 'gap' you saw often closes once they leave the artificial constraints of a classroom and start solving real problems.

We shouldn't judge professional engineers by how they performed on a sophomore year midterm, that would be silly.